Book Review: Understanding World Religions in 15-Minutes a Day

Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Mormonism, Christianity and more are discussed in Understanding World Religions in 15 Minutes a Day by Garry R. Morgan. It certainly whets my appetite for a more thorough teaching on World Religions.

Someone once said all children should be required to take a World Religions class and be informed in an objective way what the different religions are all about. After reading this book, I agree. Garry Morgan does a good job at trying to keep bias out of his words. He defines religion as, “Religion is an organized system of beliefs that answers the ultimate questions and commends certain actions or behaviors based on the answers to those questions.”

It will take you longer than fifteen minutes a day to truly absorb everything, but the extra minutes he includes at the end of each chapter are interesting facts about the religion. He even includes Secular Humanism as a religion saying, “Academic textbooks do not include it among the religions studied. Books that Christians write on world religions normally do include a chapter on secularism or atheism (although these are not exactly the same thing)… Secular Humanists are vociferously opposed to being considered a religion, largely because most people assume religion involves belief in the supernatural. State universities won’t buy textbooks over the objections of Secular Humanists…Secular Humanism fits our working definition, has significant impact on today’s world, and serves functionally as a religion.”

I became slightly offended when he described fundamental Christians as being known for what they are against rather than what they believe. Unfortunately, that sentiment is shared by some in the Christian community, but not by me. For the record, I love people even if I don’t agree with them and standing up for something shouldn’t be a mark against you. But that’s a blog for another day. This book should be read slowly because he stuffs each page full of interesting facts and histories on each of the religions represented.

In May, my husband and I traveled to Honduras with six other people for International Teams. It wasn’t an evangelism trip. Michelle Crotts runs a camp for disabled children. Teams usually bring supplies and money for supplies in order to improve the camp experience for the children, schools, and women who regularly use the camp.